


Five Goodbyes and One Hello

by mgsmurf



Series: Military Modern AU Stories [2]
Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: AU, Dystopia, F/M, Military, Near Future
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-06
Updated: 2019-07-06
Packaged: 2020-06-22 19:46:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19678312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mgsmurf/pseuds/mgsmurf
Summary: Five times Jaime Lannister gave Brienne Tarth a goodbye, and one time she returned to him.Set in a near future military dystopia AU, with five different versions of cannon GoT show scenes. Mention of Cersei and Tommen deaths.





	Five Goodbyes and One Hello

**Author's Note:**

> This is set in the same universe of my story [Unlikely Alliances ](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18065567/chapters/42697349)

1\. Goodbye at Harrenhal

“Goodbye, Colonel Lannister.” Brienne stood there in those ill fitting clothes in the sparse hotel-like room that was as good as a cell. There was a sadness in her blue eyes, her lips tightened. 

She had saved him, with her plain and steady view of things. ‘It is only a hand,’ she had said. ‘The first time in your life you have ever faced true adversity, and you’re just going to pack up and...’ Welcome to the rest of our lives, her words had said without saying them. 

His maimed hand rested in a sling against his chest. It ached, it always ached. What was a soldier without two working hands? Although, he knew the deeper wounds, from a year of imprisonment, bad treatment and near torture, inside would be harder to heal than what might be done with this ruined hand. And he had thought of giving up, of letting the infection he could feel burning through him just do that. 

They had jostled next to each other in the back of the covered transport. ‘Show them you are better than that,’ she’d said. Her chin lifted, face stoic and those beautiful blue eyes blazing, even in the shifting light in the stuffy air under the canvas. That was the face she gave the world when they knocked her down and he had been amazed by her steadfast strength still laced with vulnerability. 

Here, hours from his own release and return to his life, an ache filled his heart and he was not certain why, how. He swallowed around the lump in his throat and managed a nod. He could force no words. Brienne Tarth had saved him and he should repay the debt, yet he himself was still a captive too, still powerless to change either of their fates. He would leave in the morning in a car and then plane back to Texas. He did not except to see her again, and he pushed aside what that could mean, pushed aside thoughts of what fate she might get at the hands of those that still held her. 

She gave him a sad smile, knowing herself what could befall her, yet standing there tall and steady in the face of it. That surprising ache grew in his chest. He turned and left, fled her steady gaze and her stoic face and tried to flee what the world crushing her might mean to him. 

2\. Goodbye from King’s Landing the first time

“Goodbye, Major Tarth.” Jaime gave her a small smile. There was no much more he wanted to say, for her to take care, to be safe, to succeed. But none of those words he could get pass his lips. 

She tightened her lips, her hand gripped the pistol at her hip. She nodded her head. Maybe it was just the sun making her blink her eyes. 

She paused there at the open door to the jeep, young Podrick Payne already in the passenger seat and strapping in. Jaime should not be giving her this aid to help find Sansa Stark. Yes, he had given his word, but what did that matter, especially now to a dead woman. 

‘I’ll find her… for you,’ Brienne had said, as he handed her supplies: two pistols, ammo, two weeks of rations and a Lannister key card that should get her through the worst of trouble in Texas. It had been a shock to see her in the Lannister Corporation, there in his world. In the roughs of the hills of Appalachia he had protected her from Bolton’s men and from Locke’s games, but here she stood in a civilized world again he had was unable to protect her. His father had questions, Cersei had her jealousies. The sooner he could get her away, the sooner she would be safe. 

Now, she looked back once as she sat at the driver seat and closed the door. Jaime almost thought to fuck it all and go with her, off on adventure for good deeds. But, he had duty here and his family here. He had a new life he had to rebuild around the broken man he’d returned as. 

Jaime stood and watched while the jeep disappeared into the dusty horizon of the wide Texas sky. Part of him went with her, which was silly to think, but exactly what his chest felt like. He would just have to soldier on, turn his attention to other things, and hope Brienne Tarth would make her own way. 

3\. Goodbye at Riverrun

Jaime’d meant to be gone from this farce of a peace conference long ago. He was buzzed from the wine and port. Gods why had he let Major Tarth being there beside him get him to agree to port? Not that it hadn’t been nice to see Brienne Tarth again, and a relief to see she was doing well. He had not realized how much he had worried or missed her until she was there, beside him, as stoic and honest as she had always been. 

He just had to get back to his hotel and crash until his early flight tomorrow. Then it was back to the real world where corporations clashed for control over the loose alliances held by what had been the United States, where he had to support his father’s past atrocious actions against the Starks, try to find a way to prop up Tommen the young man who was not really his son, and deal with getting Cersei free from charges her ruthlessness had caused. It left him feeling pulled and tired. 

He frowned while he waited for the commercial car service, the app said it’d be another five minutes. Maybe Tarth would let him follow her up north and he could tell the Lannister’s and his uncle to fuck off. Just the thought of shrugging off all his responsibilities made him feel a bit giddy. 

Then, down the long loading zone he saw Lieutenant Podrick Payne waving at him. Beside him was the tall, blonde figure that could only be Brienne. And his heart seized. If he stood beside her again he just might fall at her feet and offer to go anywhere but back to his duties. He gave her a small sad smile which she echoed. His car had pulled up to the curb, a driver leaned out of an opened window. He had to go, he had to leave despite what he wanted or he would not be able to leave again. He raised his bad hand as his good one opened the door. Brienne nodded, her expression tight and perhaps as sad as his must look. Gods be good, hopefully this would not be the last sight of her he would have. 

4\. King’s Landing “goodbye” at the Dragonpit.

“Fuck loyalty.” Brienne’s hand still rested upon his bad arm. 

Jaime raised his eyes from her hand to her face. She was fierce and lovely, as amazing as when he had met her years ago. He blinked. His heart pounded in his chest. She held herself with a greater confidence than he had ever seen her have before, finally comfortable in her skin and that damn gray Stark uniform. 

Her broad, strong hand dropped from where she had grabbed the black sleeve of his dress uniform to pause him. Loyalty, it was about the only thing that kept him still beside Cersei and the Lannister Corp despite the last years actions. Behind closed doors he had done nothing but argue with his step-sister on everything she did with the corporation and with her holdings in Baratheon Industries. 

But Jon Snow had proven the threat was larger than that. Jaime would say, ‘Fuck America, what did he care for it.’ It was not his country, no matter what history Texas might hold with it. But this was greater than America, or North America even. There was evil in this world, evil that could burn humanity alive, and when faced with it you either sided against it or were complacent in its success. 

“Speak to her,” Brienne said. “Talk some reason into her.” She frowned, still fierce and bold. 

If only talk were ever enough to get sense into Cersei. Jaime looked around them, as the other delegates of the talks gathered papers or chatted with allies and foes. Their actions and words drew eyes, most dangerous of all Cersei’s. His step-sister cocked her head. Jaime tried to hide his emotions behind a neutral expression while his heart hammered in his ears. 

“This is not about corporations or alliances or what once was America,” Brienne continued on, unaware or uncaring the attention of the room was now on them. “The threat is to all humanity. All of us. You have seen that now.” And there she stood, good and right and honorable, and Jaime wanted nothing more than to ride north and fight the invaders beside her. 

“I will try.” His lips tightened and brow furrowed. He had promised her now, he couldn’t not follow through on his word. 

Cersei gathered up her advisors and made to leave, her indifference following in her wake. Jaime took up the rear, not even daring to spare Brienne a stare, not under Cersei’s watchful eye. It all reminded him how much he hated this, hated being forced into actions he did not support. Brienne had been a breath of needed fresh air. He missed how she made him feel, made him think he could be the better man she believed him to be. He missed her so much it hurt. 

5\. Goodbye from Winterfell

“Don’t go,” Brienne’s words paused Jaime, shocked him. Her short hair askew around her pale face from where his hands had run through it in their last lovemaking. He had hoped he’d be able to leave in the dead of night without waking her, without speaking to her. Cowardly and less than she deserved, yes, but he hadn’t been sure he’d be able to leave her face to face. 

His decision that he had to return to Austin had been hard to make, but he owed it to what remained of the Lannister corporation, to Tommen, the boy who was not really his. Then there was whatever hold Cersei still had on him, dark and twisted and all means of fucked up, but he had no ability to a future with Brienne anywhere until he dealt with Cersei. 

He shouldered his worn duffle filled with his few possessions higher and frowned. The taxi to take him to the airport and away would be here any moment. “You’ve never run from a fight,” he said, and he couldn’t either. She knew this, she’d known this, known he would need to leave. The last month with her under the large blue sky of the high plains in Billings had been wonderful, to have her and hold her, yet all the while he had been hiding from where he needed to be. 

Brienne strolled forward, her long robe flowing in the chill air. Her hands, warm, gentle and loving, cupped his face, and Jaime thought his heart might crack. He loved her, this he knew, fully and completely. He thought he’d known love his whole life, for he had fallen in love with Cersei as a teen, but he had been wrong. Whatever he felt for Brienne was so much greater and larger and scarier.

Brienne frowned. “You’re better than them, better than that damn corporation, better than her.” Her grip kept him from lowering his eyes, and surely she must see the hurt and pain in them. Her own eyes held unfallen tears at the edges. For him, for her, for them? 

He grasped her hand with his good one, running his thumb over it. His heart lurched in his chest. How easy it would be to fall back into her arms and kisses. He ached to be the good man she thought him to be, the one she deserved, not the damaged and fucked up man he was. He lowered her hand from his face. 

A single tear traced down her cheek. “You do not have to go to her,” Brienne said. “You do not have to die with them.”

Fighting honorable for the right fight beside Brienne was how he had wanted to die. But they had miraculously survived and won. If he left now, like this, she would follow him, this he knew. 

He took a step backwards. “For Cersei, I shoved a boy into traffic to keep him silent about our secret. To return to Cersei, I killed a Lannister man to escape my cell. For Cersei, I would have killed every soul in St. Louis to take the city.” 

The taxi rounded the corner. Brienne stood, her arms wrapped around herself, a frown on her beautiful features. “Cersei is a hateful woman,” Jaime continued. “And I am a hateful man.” Not entirely the truth, because it was himself and who he was for Cersei he hated most. 

The taxi pulled to a stop and the door opened. Brienne’s tears flowed freely now. Jaime walked away and threw his duffle into the backseat. “Please, Jaime.” She reached out to him. “Please don’t leave me.”

Jaime tightened his expression, held in place by strength alone as his heart pounded in his chest. He turned from her and the anguish on her face, otherwise he’d be a puddle of tears himself, and it hurt, more than anything in his life. He slid into the taxi and slammed the door, not daring a look as the driver pulled away. 

He managed to get through check in and security before he found an unlocked family restroom. There in a cold white room he slumped on the closed toilet seat and cried, thick tears that reddened his face and ran down his nose, that racked his shoulders. He hated himself even more, because he had just crushed and hurt the most beautiful and best person his life had ever had. This amazing woman who loved him for him with all his flaws, who loved him even if he did not deserve any of it. He wished there that Texas and whatever awaited took him because he could not live with this hurt. 

1\. Hello. 

Jaime stepped through the destruction of the Lannister Corporation Tower. The air smelled of smoke and gunpowder. A bit of concrete crumbled and fell behind him. Around him people cried in pain or for help or slumped worn out from the past days of fighting. He had come back and prevented nothing. He frowned, blinked through the dusty air. People were calling to him, “Colonel Lannister,” looking to him for guidance, for something to anchor them in the chaos. He let out a shaky breath and turned to the closest officer he found. 

Hours later and they had the chaos more under control. The wounded in makeshift medical wards. The dead sectioned off in a makeshift morgue in the basement. The walls propped up enough to not fall upon them. Jon Snow in the end had been the one to take out Daenerys Targaryen, turning on his own ally and former lover to end her madness. 

It felt like he wore his exhaustion as much as his sweat stained and blood splattered fatigues. He had tried to prevent a Targaryen once from destroying the world when he’d shot a gun into a fleeing Aerys Targaryen’s back. To what end he now does not know, because the man’s daughter had destroyed thousands in her anger. 

“Are you sure, sir, you want to see this?” Major Marbrand pinched his lips, his question stated out of concern. “The bodies have already both been definitively identified.” 

The conflict turned war and all the mess it had brought had already taken his father, his uncle, two of his illegitimate children. Tyrion was off likely in cuffs for his part in Daenerys’ destruction, and right now Jaime didn’t want to deal with how to save his life this time. They had reached the door, deep in the basement, the trapped air still smelled of smoke, and death, Jaime recognized, the smell of dead bodies just beginning to rot. He paused a moment, not allowing himself to give whether he should leave a thought, and shoved open the door. 

Inside, Marbrand pointed to where they had been laid upon exam tables. Jaime paused at Tommen first, the boy who had never been his, had never known how much Jaime cared for him despite the fact he should not. Blonde curls now darkened with blood, his face even younger in death. Someone had closed his eyes, which had been the green of Cersei’s. Regrets flooded him, for all he did not do, did not say, now would never get a chance to. 

The second body was the one Jaime needed to see, even while he dreaded it. He and Cersei were not truly blood, as she was the daughter of his father’s second dead wife. Yet, he remembered few times before Cersei. She had entered his life in the turmoil after his mother’s death and he had clung to her. Looking back on it now, as an adult, he could recognize that the unhealthy elements of their relationship started that young, neither of them knowing how to love correctly, neither of them given a model of how to do so. Now he could recognize that her control and demands of him bordered on abusive. 

While Tommen had been covered with a blanket, laid out as if he slept, Cersei was not shown the same respect. She lay crumbled. Burned flesh, from Daenery’s missiles hitting the penthouse command room, hung to her body. It marred her aging beauty, and blacked her fashionable dress suit cut to act as her uniform. Her green eyes stared glossy upward, her mouth hung open. Most of her short golden hair had been seared from her scalp. 

Cersei was dead and that control she’d always held over him should be gone as well, yet… it still lingered there, a longing and sickness just under his skin, like an addict needing a score. Jaime wasn’t sure how long he stood there, staring, lost and glad, relieved and sad. 

“Jaime,” a voice sounded behind him, drug him from his thoughts, a voice that should not be this far south. “Jaime?” 

He turned to find only Brienne Tarth behind him. She wore civies, jeans and a blue polo with sensible sneakers. She frowned, sighed. “I heard… I’m sorry….” She stepped closer, between the two bodies, her eyes on Tommen. He wondered if she saw the echo of him in the boy everyone else seemed to have always seen. 

“You shouldn’t be here,” Jaime finally managed to say. How long ago had it been since he had left her crying in Billings? It seemed a lifetime ago, though in reality it had to have only been months, all while he couldn’t stop the events already set in motion, all while he stood by a woman he increasingly hated to hold his father’s legacy together, and all while he hated himself more and more. He’d gone to Texas to again face death, and again failed. 

Brienne turned to him. Her usual strong resolve was softened, sad. “How can I help?” she asked. 

He certainly did not mean to get her involved in this mess, even if perhaps the worst of it was already passed. He shook his head, waved a hand towards Cersei, the other woman, gone and yet not gone. “What about…?” 

Brienne stepped closer still, took his good hand into hers. “We’ll figure a way through and past it.” She gave him a small smile and his hand a tight squeeze. 

“You are far too reasonable,” he found himself saying. 

“And you are rather overly dramatic,” she replied not missing a beat. 

“You like that I’m dramatic.” He found himself giving a small smirk despite everything. He’d missed her. 

“That I am not so certain of,” Brienne said. “When was the last time you slept?” She wrinkled her nose. “Or showered?” 

Days, Jaime wanted to answer, but she already knew that. Instead he shrugged, sighed. 

“Then we should tend to that first.” Brienne turned to stroll away. “Your troops can manage on their own for a bit. Then, we find you a clean uniform and a good meal.”

“You can’t just… fix me. You know that.” Jaime scowled after her, because he wanted Brienne to do just that, he’d tried to allow her to do it before in the north. 

She paused at the door and turned back to him. “I know.” She frowned. “But at least I can get you smelling and looking better, help lighten some of your duties. Come on, you are doing no good here.” She held out her hand to him. 

Jaime blinked away the tears that came to his eyes. “I don’t deserve you,” he whispered. 

Brienne’s frowned deepened. “Perhaps not, but you have me all the same, today, tomorrow, for whatever you need to work through.”

“Until when?” Jaime cocked his head. “Until I’m no longer fucked up, no longer haunted by a hateful woman, no longer….” He sighed, no longer looking for a violent end. 

She gave a smile frown, sadness in her beautiful blue eyes. “Until you realize that you do deserve me, that you can have happiness.” 

He wanted to hug her, to kiss her, to exist forever in her faith in him. “Talk to Major Marbrand,” he spoke instead. “I’m sure he can find plenty of ways for you and Payne, assuming he came with you, to help out.” 

“Good.” Brienne gave a nod.

Jaime paused beside Brienne at the door. He would have to do as she asked, find himself a bed to crash in, get a shower and clean uniform and some warm food. He should be annoyed, yet it was nice. How long had it been since someone had thought only of him and his needs. He leaned up and gave her a light kiss on her lips. He wanted to add words of need, of love, but he couldn’t manage those. 

Brienne turned her head to give him a light kiss back, and he felt the smile on her lips. “Come on,” she said. “We have work to do.” 

Jaime followed after her, letting Brienne’s faith lead him to a future, to possible happiness, to perhaps finally that good man she always thought he could be.

**Author's Note:**

> I had meant this to be a few sentences or paragraphs each and then it just grew longer as I built in needed world building.


End file.
